The Vietnamese Government committed to closing all bear farms in the country by 2022. Some researchers have expressed concerns that ending the commercial farming of bears, while demand for bear bile persists, could lead to increased hunting pressure on wild bear populations. In this article, we used mixed methods of questionnaires, Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs), and interviews to investigate current consumer demand for bear bile in Vietnam, with a specific aim of understanding the potential for consumers to seek out wild bear bile. We sampled at seven areas across the country of Vietnam (total respondents = 2,463). We found low use of farmed and wild bear bile. Despite widespread belief in farmed and wild bear bile's efficacy, we found that individuals were apathetic about continuing to use bear bile. Coupled with a strong preference for using synthetic bear bile over wild and farmed bear bile found in the DCEs, we posit that bear bile consumers in Vietnam will be willing to use non animal-based products, including bear bile plant and Western medicine, to treat future ailments.

We explore the implications of blockchain technology for conservation and environmental policy. Drawing on an analysis of 27 initiatives, we examine their goals, assumptions, visions and workings. We find that these initiatives do not yet form a coherent approach, there is too much variety in their environmental focus, and the role of blockchain technology in achieving their goals. However, they share a faith in environmental-commodity markets, a penchant for surveillance and upward accountability, and lack a critical analysis of the main causes of environmental problems. Blockchain initiatives are forming a growing community of praxis and deepen ongoing trends in neoliberal environmental governance, characterised by the increased commodification and global accounting, surveillance and marketisation of environmental goods, services and outcomes. We suggest these services and outcomes fail to challenge the actual root causes of environmental degradation. At the same time, they are not all necessarily flawed by these characteristics. They can render information held by communities financially valuable in ways those communities may find useful. Future research should focus on exploring whether blockchain initiatives may at least translate in concrete environmental outcomes and contribute to the well-being of natural resource managers.

Environmental politics in the United States have become inseparable from the politics of guns. The Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 transformed conservation policy and funding in the United States, establishing the Federal Aid to Wildlife Restoration Account, which generates public revenue for conservation through a tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment. As the manufacture and purchase of firearms and ammunition have increased rapidly in recent years, the funds flowing to conservation have also grown. Despite allotting more than USD750 million to states in 2020 alone, the Pittman-Robertson Act has been overlooked in discussions of the political economy of conservation. Here, we compare the four largest sources of revenue for state wildlife and conservation agencies and demonstrate the growing importance of Pittman-Robertson as gun sales increase. We argue that the position of firearms in conservation has shifted, disrupting widely held ideals of conservation and undermining the 'user pays’ model that is argued to undergird conservation activities in the United States. We explore the ethical concerns produced by this emerging relationship and the ways Pittman-Robertson entangles conservation with guns and violence.

Environmental conservation is presented as a success story in Namibia's Zambezi Region where conservation measures have led to an enormous increase in many wildlife populations. Complementary to historically exclusive fortress-conservation strategies, inclusive projects have gained prominence in the past few decades aiming to integrate local populations into conservation projects. Perhaps the most salient approach is community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), which sets ambitious goals of more participation, empowerment, and stewardship of local residents in the process of conservation. Despite its popularity in southern Africa, the CBNRM concept has met with criticism, especially with regard to the situations of many conservancy members. We aim to show that the idea of conservation, and the concept of CBNRM in particular, are in some respects detached from the lives of the conservancy members who are confronted with the effects and regulations of conservation measures. We therefore employ the notion of 'dissonance’ to describe the inconsistencies between the intended effects of the CBNRM concept and how it is perceived by conservancy members. Three aspects of dissonance are identified here. First, we draw attention to the limited opportunities conservancy members have to benefit from the thriving safari- and hunting-tourism industry. Second, despite successful conservation leading to increased wildlife populations, impacts of human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) and their repercussions for farming and livestock husbandry aggravate the dissonant relationship between conservancy members and the CBNRM concept. Third, we illustrate the discrepancies between the notion of the 'community’ in conservancies and the actual social organisation. Altogether, the inconsistencies between the travelling idea of conservation and its impact on local livelihoods will be demonstrated.